I do not know if structure is the correct word... but I am new to coding and nearly finished my "mid term project"... as in I'm working through "The C# Players Guide" and I am at the 1/2 Way point. I have been asked to make a Tic Tac Toe game.

The problem is that it is taking me ages as I have had to restart so many times due to realizing better ways to do thing. For example.. I now have a class class TextBuffer that assembles all the strings which I then print with a PrintBuffer class. So instead of streaming the text to the console I can collate it and then  dump it out when it is ready.

What I am getting at here is that I have found that splitting the program up into all these classes has made the program easier to make, but also means I need better per-planning. I have just realized that I may need to split some stuff into separate classes to make a clean gameLoop for example.

What I was wondering is if there are any books that are beginner friendly that focus on the structure of games, and now to build them in C#. GameLoops, UserInput, DataCollection, DataProcessing, etc etc. I feel like I am  making good progress, but I also feel like I am rediscovering the wheel, and that if I simply learnt good techniques it would speed everything up, and also produce better code forms.. for I am sure nothing I come up with now is "correct"... it just works.

Thanks!

Not C#, these are instead C++, but you should be able to get an idea if you know C#...

https://www.amazon.com/Engine-Architecture-Third-Jason-Gregory/dp/1138035459

http://www.gameprogrammingpatterns.com/ (you can read free on the web if you scroll down)

Other books exist, such as the Game Programming Gems and GPU Gems sagas, but these are mostly hodge-podge algorithms with optimizations you may never need for a simple engine. Then there are many many math and physics books, but again probably not that useful just yet. That is, as long as you aren't writing it from the ground up. If you are, you will need to know linear algebra and trigonometry from the get-go. If you want to write decent physics you'll need calculus.